Today was such a lovely day outside my wife and I had to get out of the house and go do something. But what? Today was the Cherri blossom festival in Washington D.C. and there wasn’t a chance I was going anywhere near that place. I’m not a huge fan of big crowds.. So we began to think about other places that would be fun to visit. We settled on Annapolis Maryland because neither of us had ever been to the state capital before. So we packed our bags and my Nikon D5100 and a few lenses and we were out the door!

Here is a picture of my amazingly gorgeous wife and our daughter Zelda.

I told my two ladies to sit on the steps of an empty shop while I broke out the cam. I love how this picture came out because my subjects are very sharp (Malia and Zelda) Malia just looks beautiful here with her color coordinated self. Zelda is stuffing her face as normal.

We took many pictures but I wanted to highlight a few of them here. This first picture I took in the heart of the city. It has a very colonial style to the city. So I tried to tell the story of where we were at by getting down low and shooting the picture at an upward angle. This helps me see things from my daughters perspective as well as get one of the state buildings in the background.

Zelda, my daughter, is triumphantly holding a peddle that had fallen from the tree in this shot. This was a very good composure I believe. I’m sure I could have done something to make it better, but when working with a 1 year old kid… its hard to keep them still

I love this next picture because it came out so well. We were walking down this street and I noticed this would be a great shot. I was around 2pm to the light was still very harsh. As with my other pictures I tried to find some shade to shoot in. We crossed the street and I opened up my aperture very wide to blur the background and bring focus two my wife and daughter. It took us a few shots but we got a great shot here of Zelda laughing. You also get a sense of motion with the people behind her and her hair blowing in the wind

Finally at the end of that hill we came across an AMAZING Irish violin player, playing some classic Celtic style tunes on his instrument. I broke out my camera and capture this sad picture.

I love this picture because it tells a story. A story of how “connected” and how “disconnected” our world is now. Here we have this amazing man of culture and talent, playing wonderful music… all while being ignored by just about every person who passes him on the street.

Story telling in photography can be tricky. There was another man taking pictures of him as well, but he was at a different angle focusing solely on the subject. By getting behind the musician we are able to see the world through his eyes. What might he be thinking? Will today be his last day to play? Will he decide his talent is a waste? Will he push on to provide the world with such wonderful music? Time will tell.